


For Kevin

by i_gaze_at_scully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2020-01-15 04:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18491455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: Mulder's sunflower seed habit gets under Scully's skin.





	For Kevin

**Author's Note:**

> For @lmsmith099 on tumblr

It wasn’t so much the sound that annoyed the living hell out of her. It actually grew on her, though she’s not sure when. Some people find comfort in a lover’s snore, an inherently aggravating sound; Scully found comfort in her partner’s sunflower seed habit.  _Crack, crack_. Ambient office noise, road trip radio, dialectal punctuation. It worked for her, strangely enough.

But god the  _mess_.  

“Mulder,” she’d admonish, “the poor night crew is going to have a field day. Again.” She assessed the carnage surrounding his desk, his careless aim littering scores of husks on the floor. He smirked at her, cracked a seed, and spit the shell into the trash can with an apt  _ping_. She crossed her arms.

“That only makes you look worse. If you can hit the bucket, there’s no excuse for this,” she deadpans, nodding at the floor. He shrugs and pops another seed into his mouth, holds it between his teeth and pushes words out around it. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Scully rolls her eyes and drowns out the crack of the seeds with the clack of her heels on the hallway floor. She’ll leave the custodians a nice Christmas gift.

—

“That’s ridiculous!” She shouts in the midst of a heated argument. She can’t fathom how many times they’ve had this debate. She sits in the passenger seat of their rental car staring him down. “Circumstantial at best and downright  _stupid_  at worst.”

“You say that every time, Scully, but who ends up being right in the end?” Mulder spars, and she realizes there’s a motel mini bar inside with her name on it, beckoning her away from her maniac of a partner. She exits the car, but before she can slam the door shut he calls to her.

“Hey Scully,” he says, leaning across the console with a much softer look in his eyes, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “You uh, have something…” he nods his chin at her and she looks down. There’s nothing there. “No, on your… turn around.” She looks behind her to find the husks of two  _goddamn_  sunflower seed stuck to her skirt. She maintains eye contact as she brushes them off in one, swift motion, then slams the car door in his smug face.

—

They live together now. In an unremarkable house, in an unassuming town, in a haze of endless summer. Thunderstorms brew and pass, the thick air threatens to suffocate them, and they bask in the sun when they can. This is their life now, and she loves it. She loves him.

She does not love the sunflower seeds scattered across her home at all times.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Mulder,” she says one day with a discarded shell she picked out of the rug between her fingers, “but we own a vacuum, don’t we?”

“Yes…” he replies, hesitant in anticipation of where she’s going.

“Then why,” she asks, holding the shell up, “are these still here? All. The. Time!” She throws it at him and he laughs, the lovable idiot, he actually laughs. He leans forward off the couch to grab her hand and pull her to his lap.

“Does it bother you that much, babe?” He asks, running his fingers through her hair. She’s not falling for this one.

“You’re an Oxford educated psychologist, an expert profiler, and have known me for over a decade. I think you can answer that question on your own.  _Babe_.” She has to hold her ground because it  _is_  annoying and he  _should_  clean up after himself, but he’s so damn cute with that smile and that bottom lip…. no.

“We own a vacuum, as you pointed out,” she says, standing up. “Use it.”

He leans back on the couch and gives her an appraising look, nods slowly. Her nod is short and clip, but she turns with a smile on her face.

For the next month, the rug is spotless, the floor of the car shell-free, even the space around his desk. She smiles at him as he places his shells into a plastic cup, kisses his salty lips.

One day, she wakes to find him missing from his side of the bed. Eyelids and limbs still heavy with sleep, she stretches under the covers. She startles when she hears a rustling noise, jerks up in bed.

Hundreds,  _thousands_ , of sunflower seed shells go spilling off the comforter onto their bedroom floor.

_“Mulder!”_


End file.
